71 mln People used the Internet in India Last Year

According to a recent report published by the Internet in India [I-Cube], Internet and Mobile Association of India [IAMAI] and IMRB, 71 million people claimed to have used internet in  the country in the year 2009.

This number, in a country of over a billion, is hardly anything to cheer about. This 71 million figure also includes people who use the Internet very rarely. In fact, according to the report, about 52 million Internet users in India access it on a regular basis. Just to clarify, “active users” comprise people who access the Internet at least once a month! Anyway, according to the report, the number of these active users showed a steep rise over the figures in 2008 when there were 42 million regular users. This translates to a year on year growth of 19 percent.

The interesting thing to note here is that the surge in numbers has been attributed to the increased numbers of the users in the remote urban pockets (small metros and towns) and among lower socio-economic classes. This development has been more striking this year as the combined usage of these geographies and classes have overtaken top cities and higher socio-economic classes in numbers. This finding clearly indicates that the Internet has reached to remote masses in urban India.

The report further states that Internet usage has gone up from 9.3 hrs/week, to 15.7 hrs/week i.e. a steep 70 percent rise. The reason can be attributed to innovative content delivery, better and its increased use for entertainment purposes, which comprises downloading music or videos, socializing through social networking sites and expressing one’s own opinions and views through micro-blogging and user-generated content sites.

The report also reaffirms that the Indian youth continues to drive the surge in Internet use and form major portion of the total users. Among youths, the Internet is primarily being used for searching general information and for entertainment.

While things do look rosy when we think about some aspects, India still has a long way to go before it can become an Internet superpower. With most of us plagued by high bandwidth costs and inferior IT, a lot of things need to change before we see the number of Internet users rivalling the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country.